manhood which had offered its blood to the Flag. The old Roman
spirit breathed through the verses of these music-hall songs, written
perhaps by hungry poets au sixième étage, but alight with a little
flame of genius. The women who sang them were artists. Every
gesture was a studied thing. Every modulation of the voice was the
result of training and technique. But they too were stirred with a real
emotion, and as they sang something would change the audience,
some thrill would stir them, some power, of old ideals, of traditions
strong as natural instinct, of enthusiasm for their country of France,
for whom men will gladly die and women give their heart's blood,
shook them and set them on fire.


10


The people of Paris, to whom music is a necessity of life, were not
altogether starved, though orchestras had been abolished in the
restaurants. One day a well-known voice, terrific in its muscular
energy and emotional fervour, rose like a trumpet-call in a quiet
courtyard off the Rue St. Honoré. It was the voice of "Bruyant
Alexandre"--"Noisy Alexander"--who had new songs to sing about the
little soldiers of France and the German vulture and the glory of the
Tricolour. Giving part of his proceeds to the funds for the wounded,
he went from courtyard to courtyard--one could trace his progress by
vibration of tremendous sound--and other musicians followed him, so
that often when I came up the Rue Royale or along quiet streets
between the boulevards, I was tempted into the courts by the tinkle of
guitars and women's voices singing some ballad of the war with a
wonderful spirit and rhythm which set the pulses beating at a quicker